Latest California Healthline Stories
Pfizer Agrees to Give Rx Price Information to GAO
Pfizer Inc. yesterday announced a “last-minute compromise” to provide prescription drug price information voluntarily to the General Accounting Office after the agency agreed to “safeguards that would keep the information confidential,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
Brazil Begins ‘Stringent’ Anti-Smoking Push
A pair of Brazilian politicians have helped push through a “blitz of stringent anti-smoking measures” with “unaccustomed speed,” making the country a “tougher place to sell tobacco than … just about anywhere else,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
Strong Economy Led to ‘Demise’ of Managed Care, NPR Reports
According to health care economists, what “really doomed” managed care in the 1990s was the “surprisingly strong economy,” as it allowed employers to “call the shots,” NPR’s “Morning Edition” reports.
Academic Medical Centers Lobby for More Coverage for the Uninsured
Twenty-nine members of the Association of Academic Health Centers, a coalition of 100 academic health centers, have begun lobbying for an expansion of government health insurance programs to cover the 40 million uninsured in the United States, the Baltimore Sun reports.
Bay Area Providers Begin Offering Home-Buying Assistance to Attract New Doctors
Several Bay area hospitals and clinics have begun new housing subsidy programs to “lure” doctors to the region by offsetting the high cost of housing, the San Jose Mercury News reports.
Doctors May Exit Medicare Program After Rate Reductions
With the federal government having reduced Medicare physician reimbursement rates this year by 5.4%, doctors warn that Medicare beneficiaries “will feel the pain” if providers choose to cut back services or drop out of the program altogether, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Bakersfield Emergency Departments ‘Increasingly Overloaded,’ Report Finds
Emergency departments in Bakersfield have become “increasingly overloaded” over the past four years, despite the addition of Bakersfield Heart Hospital in 1999, the Bakersfield Californian reports.
Prescription drug costs for “thousands” of California inmates and the mentally ill have “skyrocketed” in the past five years “as the state’s outmoded prison pharmacy system teeters near collapse,” according to a state auditor’s report.
Florida, Washington State Sue Online Pharmacy and Physician Over Online Cipro Sales
The attorneys general of Florida and Washington state are suing an online pharmacy and a Florida physician who allegedly worked together to dispense the anthrax treatment Cipro over the Internet “without examining or consulting” patients, the New York Times reports.
Six Health Plans to Launch Quality Initiative
Six health plans that operate in California are expected to announce tomorrow a joint initiative to reward doctors and hospitals for “providing quality health care and for avoiding medical errors,” the Los Angeles Times reports.